Leon Sigal
Director, Northeast Asia Cooperative Security ProjectPhone: (718) 517-3688Bio
Leon V. Sigal is director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York.His book, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea, published by Princeton University Press, was one of five nominees for the Lionel Gelber Prize as the most outstanding book in international relations for 1997-98 and was named the 1998 book of distinction by the American Academy of Diplomacy. His most recent book, Negotiating Minefields: The Landmines Ban in American Politics, was published by Routledge in 2006.
Sigal was a member of the editorial board of The New York Times from 1989 to 1995. He served in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, in 1979 as International Affairs Fellow and in 1980 as Special Assistant to the Director.
He was a Rockefeller Younger Scholar in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in 1972-1974 and a guest scholar there in 1981-1984. From 1974 to 1989 he was a professor of government at Wesleyan University. He was an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs from 1985 to 1989 and from 1996 to 2000 and a visiting lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School in 1988 and 2000.
Sigal is also the author of Reporters and Officials: The Organization and Politics of Newsmaking, Alliance Security: NATO and the No-First-Use Question (with John Steinbruner), Nuclear Forces in Europe: Enduring Dilemmas, Present Prospects, Fighting to a Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan, 1945, and Hang Separately: Cooperative Security Between the United States and Russia, 1985-1994, as well as numerous articles in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic Monthly, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among others. He edited The Changing Dynamics of U.S. Defense Spending.
Programs and Projects
- Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project
- (Program Director)
Publications
- Leon Sigal, For North Korea, Verifying Requires Reconciling: The Lesson from A Troubled Past—Part II (December 28, 2018), https://www.38north.org/2018/12/lsigal122818/.
- Article/Essay(s)
- Leon Sigal, Misreporting the Trump Administration’s Boffo Break with the Failed North Korea Policy of the Past (February 5, 2019), https://www.38north.org/2019/02/lsigal020519/.
- Morton Halperin, Peter Hayes, Chung-in Moon, Thomas Pickering, Leon Sigal and Philip Yun, Beyond the Second Trump-Kim Summit: Time for Realistic Next Steps (February 1, 2019), https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/beyond-the-second-trump-kim-summit-time-for-realistic-next-steps/.
News
View all →Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project director Leon Sigal provides commentary in a Carnegie Moscow Center piece exploring the question, “Can North Korea be contained?”
Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project director Leon Sigal discusses the possibility of renewed negotiations with North Korea under Trump in an opinion piece at CNN.com
Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project director Leon Sigal is quoted in a Washington Post article on Track 2 diplomacy with North Korea: “Almost Diplomacy: US Ex-officials, NKoreans Quietly Meet”
The Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project has released the 2015 edition of the North Korea Chronology, the latest annual installment of a detailed chronology of events relevant to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and negotiations with North Korea dating back to 2001 [PDF available]
Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project director Leon Sigal discusses the rise of China’s military capabilities and the state of inter-Korean relations in an interview with the South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh